Groundhog Day: A Portfolio View of an Early Spring

By Dave Kansas

Reuters

Spring is coming soon! Really?

Punxsutawney Phil emerged and didn’t see his shadow or Bill Murray. In theory, that means that an early spring is right around the corner. With a massive blizzard ripping across the country, one might have reason to doubt Phil’s oracular powers.

If Phil is right (more on that in a moment), let’s see what a Groundhog portfolio would look like.

LONG

Lawn care. If all that snow melts, yards will need a lot of work earlier than expected. Toro is a self-described “turf” specialist. It makes lawn mowers (Toro, Lawn-Boy) and other grass gobblers. It even boasts Lawn Genie sprinklers. And for making that green grass grow: Scotts Miracle-Gro. They’ve got fertilizer and weed killer. So does Monsanto.

Suntan lotion. The sun will shine one day, just not today in Punxsutawney. So, we’ll need some Coppertone, which is made by Schering Plough. And Hawaiian Tropic, a member of the Energizer Holdings portfolio, along with that silly rabbit.

Seeds. When you think seeds, you think hats. Like Dekalb and Pioneer Hi-Bred. Dekalb is part of Monsanto, Pioneer a member of the DuPont family. Unfortunately, Burpee seeds is private.

SHORT

Road salt. Won’t need it for much longer! That means Compass Minerals, home of North American Salt, and Akzo Nobel, which has a salt division, too.

Natural gas, home heating oil. In theory, we’ll need less. At least until the air conditioning season kicks into high gear, which might help natural gas.

So, about Phil’s track record. It’s pretty spotty. The Christian Science Monitor reports that the Gobbler’s Knob prognosticator usually predicts six more weeks of winter (86% of the time) and is right about 39% of the time overall.

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